Legend of Zelda: A Link to Gensokyo
by LightvsDark99
Summary: Left adrift in the middle of the ocean and abandoned by the gods that made him their champion, Link expected nothing more than an unremarkable death. Things are never so simple for Link, and he finds himself washed ashore in the Land of Illusion, where even a single newcomer could cause a ripple.
1. Beginnings

**Divine Favor ~ Repentance**

The water lapped lightly at the young man clinging to a plank of wood. He groaned in discomfort and his eyes opened to barely a slit in a vain attempt to block out the sun's glaring light. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and it, like the ocean, seemed to stretch on forever.

His eyes suddenly widened in confusion and he looked around, frantic. Only a single thought ran through his head: "Where am I? What the hell is going on?"

However, no matter how he looked, all he was met with was sea and sky and scattered driftwood. It provided no answers yet felt familiar in a deeply disturbing way. The only other time he had crashed was in a-

-a dream.

Now he understood. Now he remembered.

The island; the Wind Fish; Marin.

Everything he had sought to protect from harm was a dream—the Wind Fish's dream—that he had been cast into. Those people who had been his friends, that beautiful island aflush with nature and wildlife of all sorts. He had been sent there for one purpose: to protect the Wind Fish from the Nightmare. Something he hadn't known until the very end, when it was far too late to stop the Wind Fish from waking and destroying the dream world.

So his efforts had ultimately gone to saving something he could scarcely understand. And his reward?

Nothing at all; he was left to drift in the middle of a vast and seemingly boundless ocean, parched and tired, and filled with regrets.

The only thing he knew for certain was that he loathed the goddesses that had driven him to this. The goddesses whose "chosen hero" amounted to little more than a tool to be used when they couldn't be bothered to intervene.

But above all, he hated himself the most.

For daring to hope that they would provide for him. For having faith despite everything. After all the scars and the pain; after being left to die so many times. Even after all that, in the back of his head he still prayed. Still hoped, when he should have just given up and spared himself the pain of their indifference.

The ocean, uncaring of his emotional turmoil, continued to rock against him, threatening to separate him from his meager lifeline. He clutched at the plank of wood ever harder. It won't be much longer. Soon, he would lose his strength and slip from the driftwood, leaving him to sink beneath the waves.

And then he would drown.

That thought didn't fill him with any emotions anymore, when the thought of death alone would once give him the courage he needed to survive impossible odds.

Now?

Now he was just too tired; he just wanted to close his eyes and rest.

He couldn't bring himself to care anymore. There was no way to survive like this, and nor was there reason to want to.

"I want to die." The words scraped out painfully. It was a horrible realization; an awful realization. And yet it was the truth all the same. Something he had tried to bottle inside and deny for so, so long. Tried to bury beneath a sense of duty and divine justice.

But he didn't care anymore, and let himself slip away into blissful unconsciousness and unknowing.

However, fate had other plans for the young man in green.

Far beneath the waves in the depths of the ocean, and far above the waves in the cloudless sky, something began to happen.

Lights, sized from little more than pinpricks to spotlights, looked upon the limp body of the once-hero of Hyrule. They gazed at him dispassionately, endless in number and color.

And they began to dance, swirling in hypnotic patterns around Link and the driftwood. They grew greater and greater numbers until they rivalled the stars in the night sky; grew swifter and swifter, forcibly raising the young man from the water.

He rose into the the lights as they danced and danced, pulling him ever further from the surface of the water. In the chaos, a tear formed.

 **In another time, another place.**

Water….

It surrounded him all sides and deafened him to the world….

A great mirror stretched above him, the barrier between sea and sky; unreachable, it taunted him with a glimpse of freedom and safety. He couldn't feel anger nor despair, for his mind could no longer grasp such things.

"Is this the end?" He thought, barely comprehending the words as they formed. After what seemed like eternity, he came to understand his own thoughts, and yet felt at ease.

He would not be left to rest, however. Warm hands grabbed at him from unknown, and pulled him gently into strong yet feminine arms.

And then they were moving, but he did not know where. Upwards, perhaps? It would make sense, though his mind was far to disjointed to be sensible.

This situation was familiar to him; it nagged at his barely conscious self.

"Marin?" He concluded in his thoughts. This reminded him of the girl who had saved him—no, the illusion that had made him sympathetic to the plight of the Wind Fish. She wasn't real; she never had been.

Still, he couldn't help but find parallels in her rescue with what was happening now, as his rescuer dragged him through the water.

"She's… strong." It was incredible, really. How whomever it was was capable of moving so quickly, even when weighed down by him and his equipment.

Link's awareness began to slip as the mirror broke and water gave way to air. The primal joy was brief, as he slammed into the shore shortly afterward; he suddenly knew how much his body hurt, aching in places he didn't even remember having.

He gasped inadvertently, and began to cough. It started out as nothing more than a slight wheeze for air, but steadily built up until he was hacking and choking up water he had swallowed at some point in the depths.

As he lay there, convulsing in pain and coughing, a hand began to awkwardly rub his back, as if trying to comfort him. Despite all odds, it did bring some measure of peace to his wildly panicking mind.

His coughing eventually calmed, and then resided. The hand ceased the ponderous circling pattern it had taken and lifted from his back. A crunching in the gravelly shore signalled that its owner had moved, perhaps standing up now that he seemed to be stable. Link almost missed that feeling, despite the one responsible clearly having no idea what they were to be doing.

Then, someone spoke.

"Um… Wakasagi? Why'd you drag this guy up with you?" A young woman said sounding both aloof and nervous. An unfamiliar word is the first thing spoken, and Link wondered if it was a name.

"I couldn't've just let 'im drown, yeah? Reimu'd kill me!" Another young lady responded, sounding much more confident than her conversation partner.

"But, he's an outsider! He's fair game, you know." The first girl quickly fired back, spouting unfamiliar terms that left Link confused.

"Ya know I don't got an appetite fer that! If I don't have'ta, I won't! And look at 'is ears, will ya?" The second girl—Wakasagi is her name, Link believed—grumbled. Link wondered what his ears had to do with anything.

"He's a youkai, huh? Still, I don't know why you'd save him."

"Doesn't matter what 'e is: 'is remains'd look human. Just let 'im lay 'ere a bit; keep an eye on 'im too."

"Why do you need me? You're more than enough to fight the ferals 'round here!"

"You see 'ow much 'e's carryin'? I'm all tuckered out!"

"... Fine. I'll watch him 'til he wakes. Whatever happens after that isn't my problem."

"That's fine wit' me! It's only a problem if 'e dies on my turf! It's the burden o' the only sapient around."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Thanks, Kagerou! I'll catch you a nice 'n juicy fish later!"

"No prob'."

After "Kagerou" and "Wakasagi" finished speaking, a splash rang out along the shore of the lake. Link wished for a moment that his eyes would cooperate with him and open, if only to see what had just happened. And to get a glimpse of whoever those two were.

He'd speak, but his throat seemed about as ready to work as his eyes had been. That is to say that they weren't at all.

Footsteps crunched along the shore as one of his saviors—they were, even if the reasons were clearly selfish—walked away. They stopped shortly, so it was probably Kagerou, tasked as she was with keeping an eye on Link.

Link strained his ears to listen further for any sort of clue as to where he was, but found it failing. He could barely think anymore, his wakefulness seemingly spent.

Blankness threatened to overwhelm what remained of his awareness. He struggled futilely to stay awake for even a second longer, but it was unrelenting, and Link no longer knew himself nor anything at all.

He lay on the shore, unconscious. The sun glared down at him from above, and many eyes watched from strange places.

 **A/N:**

 **Apologies to those of you who have read this, but this isn't a new update. I've decided to begin revising the very few chapters made so far; in third person this time around. It's much easier for me to write this way, so I should write at a quicker pace than before.**


	2. Forwards

**In Which Link Wanders the Fabled Land of Illusion**

Ugh.

What a nasty headache. Is this what a hangover is like? Like a bunch of horrible musicians went to town while I was sleeping….

I move to rub my head, and cringe in pain even more; my body aches even worse than my head! A sharp breath forces its way out from between my clenched teeth. Great Goddesses! Why am I so damn sore‽

The slightly gravelly earth I'm lying on crunches as I force my hurting body into a sitting position. It hurts horribly, but I refuse to simply lie down when I have no earthly clue as to where I am!

Finally, I open my eyes.

Ouch! Damn, that stings too! And, on top of that, everything's blurry!

I wipe the offending tears from my eyes and try to look around again.

What the hell?

Any regard for the pain in my head and body leaves me as I frantically take in my surroundings.

The first thing of note was: I'm not on the shore of a beach; I'm not even near an ocean! The water lapping at my boots is from the massive lake dominating most of my vision.

The second thing: There's a rather large, red mansion almost directly across from where I sit. If that doesn't scream "evil monster's lair", then I don't know what would.

The third thing: I'm not actually dead! One would think this would be my first conclusion, but I'm a bit scattered at the moment. No matter how tired of being used as a tool I was, I can't help but be happy to be alive.

The fourth and final thing: I actually remember how I got here! Well, not this land or nation specifically, but I know how I came to be lying on the shore here. Someone rescued me; apparently I was somehow in the lake, far under the surface. That alone worries me. Going from a plank in the middle of a godsforsaken ocean to under the surface of an isolated lake reeks of magic—divine magic, that is.

I should have expected this, honestly. There's no way I would have survived if the Goddesses hadn't decided I was still useful to them. And that use, clearly, is to save yet another land from yet another destructive and evil being.

I'll bet it's who or whatever is hanging out in that ugly red mansion; it looks far too intimidating to be a normal place of residence. Rather, it's trying way too hard to look grim and intimidating. All the red everywhere is just kinda garish, and while I can't quite see the details, I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of stone gargoyles loitering about on the various ledges.

Yeah, that's real subtle. I'd go after it now just to get things over with, but every breath I take reminds me of how weak I am right now. I wish I was exaggerating when I said that I ache everywhere. I really do.

As much as I'd like to just sit around and feel sorry for myself, sitting with my boots soaked and the rest of my clothes damp wouldn't be the best of plans. Especially since it's somewhere between "not-quite-comfortably-cold" and "Great-Goddesses-my-everything-is-frozen". And it'd be more difficult than it's worth to start a campfire near the shore. Really, it would be for the best if I just put any personal thoughts aside until I'm safe.

That and I'd like to stay away from the gaudy, scarlet residence while too injured to fight properly. The ground crunches beneath my feet as I stand for the first time in what seems like years, and take a nice stre—ow! Shit! Dammit! No stretching for now; that hurt horribly and I don't know why I expected anything different.

Now that I'm standing and in even worse pain than before, I should probably decide which way I should go. Naturally I'm not going near the scarlet mansion, but that hardly means I should just choose at random. And seeing as everything at ground level is lake, forest, or mansion, I figure looking to the sky for any telltale signs of fireplace smoke is the best course of action.

So I stand there for several minutes, turning on occasion as I squint at the sky. If there was anyone watching, they'd probably think me an idiot. A great idiot swivelling around on his heels.

There isn't really anything remarkable to gaze upon up in the sky. There's the rather massive mountain several miles away, a couple of clouds, the sun looking like it had just passed midday, and a girl in a blue dress flying from the la—wait what? I look again to make sure I didn't imagine it, and I didn't. There is indeed a girl flying over the lake like it's the most natural thing in the world; like it's something she could just _do_. And, of course, she's coming straight for me!

She suddenly pulls to a stop about ten, maybe twelve, feet away from me, standing still. I tense up, waiting for her next mo—"You there! Human!" The fairy shouts.

"You've made a great mistake coming here! I don't know if you know what I know, but I know that you're on the turf of the Strongest! Now, you may be wondering who that Strongest is, but I'll let ya know—that's me! I'm the best fighter in all of Gensokyo, so you'll have to listen up and do what I tell ya now that you're in _my_ territory, ya hear‽ If ya haven't yet, clear out those dinky ears of yours, cuz Cirno's about to lay down the law!"

It's more of a monologue, really.

"Now, we can do this two ways: the easy way, or the easier way. The easy way is where you just give up and leave and go back home and cry about how weak you are to your friends, and the easier way is what happens if you stay. I'll pound your face into the dirt, and flash-fre…"

That's about where I stopped paying attention to her rather self-aggrandizing speech. I set down my bag and begin to search it. Fortunately, nothing in my bag seems to have been lost (excepting my shield, an annoying trend), so I pull out my boomerang within a couple of seconds. I look up to see the girl still ranting—seriously, she should at least have her eyes open when she does—and take aim. With a bit of effort and a disproportionate amount of pain, the boomerang goes off spinning through the air.

"Victory goes to the ones with the most courage, and I. Am. Courag-" And it hits her straight in the head with little more than a hollow thud; she didn't even make an effort to dodge. Hell, I don't know if she even noticed the damn thing.

The blue-haired and blue-dress-wearing girl falls to the ground unceremoniously, having been knocked completely unconscious. The idiot lands in a small puddle of mud just a couple feet away from the drier part of the shore. I snort a bit.

I grimace in pain shortly afterward, and rub my right shoulder. It's nothing I'm unused to, but it doesn't make it pleasant or tolerable.

Pushing the issue of whole-body pain aside, I turn to my would-be assailant. I walk (or rather, shuffle) over to the young-looking girl.

As I reach her, I notice just how small she is. She's barely the size of an eight year-old child. I've never seen a fairy as large as her—aside from the Great Fairies, of course—, and not a single one this aggressive. This land's already giving me the creeps.

Aggressor or not, it didn't really seem like she was out to kill me. Maybe I pissed her off somehow? Anyway, she hit the ground pretty hard—I've got a bit of medicinal skill stored up after all these years. May as well use 'em on someone else now.

Firstly and most importantly (at least in my opinion), I check to see if there are any breaks in the spine… okay, we're good there. No noticeable cracks in the skull, either. Good, good. Not a cut or scratch anywhere at all—she's tougher than she looks. That dress is probably ruined, though.

She's having trouble breathing, but I think that's because she's face-down in a puddle of mud; let's try and roll her over, then. As I do, I notice that the crystal wing things fan out from behind her back so she can lie more comfortably.

Now that she's on her back, she seems to be breathing easier, confirming what I had thought. I sigh in a combination of frustration and relief. Even if she was about to attack me, I still feel horrible for hurting someone who looks this young. I'm supposed to be the hero, right? If that's true, why can't I feel justified in my own acts?

I rub my eyes in an attempt to relieve some of the frustration, and maybe calm myself a bit; it's not likely, but I can at least say I tried. Ugh. Why can't things be like they were in that dream world? At least the "good" and the "evil" were easily distinguishable from one another there. Rolling my right shoulder once again, I stand back up…

… and immediately turn my eyes back to the sky. Before that little girl showed up, I had scanned most of the sky visible from here, but I hadn't found any signs of a village or town yet. Admittedly, it is difficult to spot smoke trails at midday or early afternoon, so I probably just glanced over it. And with the girl attacking me from the lake, I didn't have the time to check the half of the sky away from the lake.

Looking around the aforementioned half of the sky, I find nothing for a couple of moments. I squint a bit and look over that part of the sky again. After all, they wouldn't have sent me to some nigh uninhabited land, would they? The goddesses are a lot of things—mostly bad—but they aren't idiots. They wouldn't send their champion on a pointless quest.

Finally, I spot a thin, white trail of smoke some distance to the southeast of the lake. I grin despite myself and make to get moving. Bag in hand, I start off towards the trails of smoke with my sword now hanging comfortably at my waist. It and my sword have been my most steadfast companions, so I feel something close to contentment when I have them with me.

I barely make it twenty feet before I turn back and look to the small girl, still lying unconscious. Then I walk right back over and carefully lay her over my shoulder, noticing as I do that the air around her is just barely a degree or two colder than elsewhere—which does wonders for my shoulder. That'd explain the crystals, actually; maybe they're ice, rather than some clear stone?

Well, regardless of what her… actually, what possible purpose could a bunch of floating pieces of ice serve? Are they wings or something? Maybe she gets power from them? I guess I'll ask her later, if she isn't feeling resentful.

With my bag on my back, sword at my waist, and that girl on my shoulder, I'm the perfect picture of a criminal. Excellent. Well, I certainly hope I won't run across any law enforcement like this. No matter how good a swordsman I am, I can't survive getting an entire government on my ass. Being the legendary hero doesn't come with invincibility;

Looking as suspicious as I do right now, a little more finesse than usual is probably a good idea. Well, "finesse" in the sense that I'll try and avoid running into people until the girl is awake; after that, I'll have to try and see if I'm still good at dealing with fairies. Hoo, that is going to be an ordeal, I can already tell.

I guess I can't do much more than hope that we'll be able to work this out peacefully. Look at me, still hoping so earnestly. How pathetic can you get?

Readjusting the girl into a more comfortable position, I actually begin to set out towards those wisps of smoke. I don't know how far away it is, but it'll probably be more than a day's journey; especially since travelling by night would make it hard to stay on track.

Fortunately, the forest's trees are mostly bare, and the dead leaves all but rotted away or covered beneath a light blanket of snow. It leaves what would be a maze-like expanse of trees relatively easy to navigate. That small blessing comes with a chance of death by frostbite, but you can't really win everything.

What little snow there is crunches under my feet. It'll leave footprints behind, but most monsters aren't smart enough to consider that. If even one is, though? It'd be a problem; one I'd like to nip in the bud.

So I stop and set the still unconscious girl down. Gently, of course. And given her nature, the snow shouldn't bother her too much.

Next, I look through my bag; I'm pretty sure there was a tarp in there somewhere—wait! What was that‽

Footsteps‽

In an instant my sword is drawn and ready, my body tense and mind alert.

My eyes dart around. Where could they have hidden themselves from me? What could I use to my advantage? The trees are bereft of leaves, making them nigh useless to hide in. The ground is covered in a thin sheet of snow, and the undergrowth is dead and withered away—seriously, the most I could do is make a snowball!

In this kind of environment, the best method of attack would be with the sword; bows, bombs, and other such things are best left for more open places. Maybe I could throw a snowball or something to distract them? No, that's too foolish. My shield's gone, too; I'll have to compensate with a bit more caution.

All the preparation in the world won't save me if I can't even see the damned noisemaker; too busy being dead and all that. Maybe I'll just have to trust my ears instead of my eyes? Goddesses, I hope I won't regret this.

So, contrary to my own rationality, I close my eyes and listen.

Wait, are they running away? The sounds of their footsteps are growing fainter with every step. I stand there and listen to the fading steps. Is it some kind of trick? Are they trying to get my guard down?

Worse, were they watching me?

I barely resist the urge to scream in frustration.

Damn it all!

Someone's been watching me.

They already know I'm here.


End file.
